Say My Name [ Teacher-Student Romance -- Robert Downey Jr ]

Epilogue - Part 1 - Promises

Comment your reactions as you read along :) be entertaining for me to read haha :)

Part Two coming tomorrow!

Part 1 of 2
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Sometimes the route best taken is a tumultuous one. A story best told with whiskey in hand, gulped steadily rather than sipped studiously. Full of deception, corruption and mutating loyalties; that's life. Theres nothing special about one compared to another, not when you're human. Not when this winding path has been worn far before your own wandering feet scuff the same dusty trail. Amber liquid sloshing against the glass sides, half empty, half awaiting to be quickly consumed.

Though that was then. That was thundering skies and heavy black clouds, not a sixty day sober coin jostling in the pocket of her newly knitted sweater.

With the passing time, she's come to realize a few things. Romance isn't meant to soothe scars that have long ago been laid, isn't meant to rebuild a broken foundation, and often when under that pressure, it crumbles, not forms. Albeit they were anything but conventional.

At the end of a setting sun, when printed words meet the press, statements stated, maybe the world just kept spinning as they were laid to rest. Nothing but a blimp on a much larger picture, a much more extensive existence than just theirs.

Perhaps mistakes can be mended. Perhaps a genuine apology can be enough. Maybe this once it will be enough. To let them both go to that better place, their natural place and path, the place they've both meant to be for far longer than they've been denied it.

Peering with a distressed frown into the reflecting mirror, she combs a feel for her new hairstyle, or lack of one, really. It was getting long, anyhow. Just like the time before she had cut it, this brings purpose. It means something.

The dogs go into hysteria as a solid knock protrudes from the front door. She can hear Jay calming them, wrestling their jingling collars into grip as Casey welcomes that ever familiar male voice into their home.

This is it. It's time.

When Charlotte leaves the washroom, Carson's standing there, thumb in her pocket and a little solemn smile, peering at the younger knowingly. An unfamiliar toque slips to cover Charlottes ears with warm words of, "Can't have you getting a cold now, can we." and Charlotte hugs her, long and hard, before Carson's wiping down Charlottes sides and helping her carry her things to the front door. Introductions and more tearful embraces and soon leaving her chosen family behind, waving them off to breathe in the whisks of the retreating Hondas exhaust as the two traveling companions drive off.

Much has changed in the last eight months. A lot of it has been rough, but she kept pushing. She kept searching and living.

Not that she's been the only one.

Charlottes father was arrested the following week after Moll's funeral. He broke into an elementary school late one evening, found in a vacant classroom with Molly's few last things scattered around him. He's now back in Miami, living with old friends and family, heavily medicated and seen by a therapist daily.

Charlotte makes a point to FaceTime him as much as she can, or call, or text, whatever helps. Every time they speak, Jerry begs her to come live with him. It hurts, but she can't. She won't and eventually he concedes to understand that, even though they both know he'll restart the conversation cycle at the top of their next call.

They never speak of Teresa, the same as neither has seen her since Molly's funeral.

It still feels strange to say, strange to feel, but she has a new name for her mother; Carson. Jays mother, who was meant to leave the same morning Robert did, is still here in Seattle and has been the number one driving force to Charlottes recovering sobriety and sanity.